Cooper James was born in the month of June, 2000. Historically, June is an interesting month. Here are a few examples:

• June, 1933: FDR takes the US off the gold standard.

• June, 1981: The first scientific report on AIDS is published.

• June, 1991: Mikhail Gorbachev receives a Nobel Peace Prize.

• June, 2013: The Guardian newspaper publishes the first NSA leaked documents by Edward Snowden.

Cooper was born in Arizona. Cooper is my wife’s third child, and he slipped right on out of that dilated cervix. Really, he kind of did. It was a relatively “easy” delivery, especially compared to our firstborn, which turned into an emergency C-section and was very hard on my wife and oldest son.

I state my wife had an “easy” delivery from the cheap seats, Monday morning quarterbacking, and backseat driving. As for my part in the delivery, I almost passed out. The doctor asked me if I wanted to cut the umbilical cord, and I did. After cutting the cord, I turned three shades of green and lay down in a recliner, all the way back, horizontal. Were it not for that recliner, I would have been lights out. Yeah, big, bad paramedic-firefighter I was…

Thanks be to God, Cooper was born healthy. He measured in the 5th percentile for weight and 10th percentile for height. He was small. Cooper’s next older brother, two years older, was also born in the lower percentiles for height and weight. What was perplexing about this is that nobody in our family is small in stature. We’re all average height and weight, even tall.

We had a wonderful pediatrician, and he did a work-up on Cooper and his brother. The diagnosis? Constitutional delay. Which meant the boys would grow to average height and weight, but it would be delayed. And that’s what happened. Cooper was 5’11” and 180 pounds the day he died. Now, to be fair, Cooper worked really hard to gain weight. He ate a lot and worked out hard for his gains. He earned all 180 lbs., which is a testament to his tenacity.

Cooper’s smallness was never a concern for me because I knew one day he would grow. We used to joke with Cooper in good nature, “Cooper, you can’t have it all. You’re kind, smart, loving, and good-looking. Do you really think God was going to give you the 100% package and give you height too? Come on, man. That just wouldn’t be fair. Let’s give the ladies a fighting chance…”

It never dawned on me that Cooper’s smaller stature up until late high school may have bothered him. But it did. Cooper was up in Montana visiting over a college break, and we were eating ramen at a local restaurant. He said something I still remember that’s just one of the many things I think about now. He said, and I am paraphrasing, “I know I am regular size now, but I still feel like I am small in my mind.” In this conversation, Cooper intimated, in no uncertain terms, that it always kind of bothered him that he was smaller than his peers growing up.

I have vivid memories of Cooper playing soccer, beginning in 1st grade and through his senior year of high school on the varsity team. Cooper was almost always the smallest player on the field, but he balled, man. He really was a very good soccer player. He worked and played hard, battled the bigger players, and his size never seemed to limit him. I know his teammates and friends would corroborate this. He was a solid, starting member of the varsity team; a center midfielder.

Cooper loved soccer. It was one of his passions. This past September, Cooper flew to Miami, FL, with two coworkers to watch Messi play, but unfortunately, after the tickets were bought, Messi bailed on the game. They still went and watched the game, sans Messi. Sadly, this trip was a recent trigger for Cooper. Not because he didn’t have fun—to the contrary. Cooper came home and, through tears, stated he had forgotten how much fun it was to be with friends and hanging out. My wife and I both identify this trip to Florida as a recent trigger among several others. It was good that he went, but it stirred up a lot of emotion for him.

There is one time, though, where Cooper’s stature did matter, and it’s another reflection for me that gives me pause.

When we lived in Southern Arizona, San Diego, California, was our quick escape vacation destination. It’s a 5.5-hour drive, and before you know it, your toes are wiggling in the sand on the beach. You look out at the vast ocean and see no end. You feel the ocean breeze on your body, take a deep breath and fill your lungs full with salty air, and you feel your shoulders drop and the stress release. San Diego was our regular family vacation go-to. We love SD.

Our favorite place to stay in Southern California (SoCal) was in a beach cottage in La Jolla. We walked to Windansea Beach and spent the day in the surf and sand, and everyone was happy. Given the option of SeaWorld, Legoland, or the beach, the kids chose the beach every time.

One of the activities that the boys and I were fond of was wave crashing. We would simply stand in the surf, and as the waves were about to crash, we would dive into them at the base and come up and out on the other side. It was fun, and we would spend hours crashing waves.

On one particular day, the tide was in, it was a high tide day, and the wind was up. This meant very big waves. If I recall, they were in the neighborhood of six feet. As we were crashing waves on this big wave day, I looked over and saw Cooper starting to get caught up in waves too big for him. I swam over to him, grabbed him, and swam back to shore with him. Afterward, I told Cooper, “You’re out. The waves are too big.” And they were, especially for his stature. He was not happy; he wanted to hang in there with his brothers.

Academically and intellectually, not many could hang with Cooper. Cooper did not flaunt his intellect; in fact, you would never know he was gifted. Physically, growing up, however, Cooper had to work harder than his peers for many years to play at the same level. I wonder now how this manifested in his psyche.

Shortly after I removed Cooper from the ocean, Carse bailed. A few waves later, CJ and I tapped out. It was simply too rough, and the waves were too big.

This was 2008. In 2015, I retired from the fire department, and I was not doing well. I had stress injury from 25 years of slow grind, and it took me several months to find my balance and regain equilibrium. Lucky for me, I fell in with the Buddhists and took up meditation, and it was healing for me.

I must say, it never bothered me that I was meditating with the Buddhists in light of my Christian faith. I reasoned then, and I still do today, that God’s love is big. I believed then, as I do now, there’s absolutely nothing I can do that will separate me from the love of God, even if I willfully tried. I believed then that Jesus was so deep in the marrow of my bones that I was not even entirely myself, but at least in part, Jesus.

Spending time with the Buddhists was good for me, healing, and I have zero regrets. I would do it all over again.

In October of 2015, I ended up at a silent meditation retreat at Spirit Rock, an active Buddhist monastery. I took noble vows of silence and spent quiet time in meditation day and night for a week. It was life-changing.

It’s the first time I saw an enlightened person. I was sitting in silence, having lunch, and gazing out the window. As I gazed, a hundred yards out, a Buddhist nun walked up a tree-lined path. She wore a maroon robe, had a shaved head, and she was glowing, smiling ear to ear, all by herself. A radiance surrounded her, like a golden orbit. She walked against a backdrop of tall trees, the tops of which swayed in the wind, or perhaps they were bowing—I don’t know. I was stunned.

On night four, I had a dream. I wrote the dream in my journal, June 26th, 2015. I wrote exactly this:

Day 5

Had a dream last night that Cooper was caught in a riptide and I dove in and swam out to him and was helping keep his head up and swim. I think Cooper could be drowning in his perfectionism and trying to keep up; he needs my help.

The dream reminded me of our big wave day in La Jolla. I never shared this dream with Cooper because it scared me—because in the dream, I was never sure if I kept Cooper’s head up and saved him.

I did not.

Three to four weeks before Cooper died, before he took his own life (I hate saying and writing this, but I feel that it’s important I do so), I asked Cooper if he wanted to go for a walk with me. As we were walking through the neighborhood in silence for a long time—because Cooper was not much of a conversationalist—I suddenly asked him, “Do you know how to get out of a riptide?” He said, “Yeah.” I said, “Then tell me.” Cooper shared correctly that you don’t fight the current, but swim parallel to the shore and then angle in or come in when you’re out of the rip. I asked Cooper, “Does that have any meaning to you?” He said, jokingly, “No, but I bet you can figure something out on how it does.”

He was right, of course. I wax too philosophical sometimes. A lot of times. Yeah, most of the time.

Thing is, now that Cooper is not here, and on account of what happened, I am convinced part of the reason he took his life is that he was drowning in his perfectionism, swimming against the rip, rather than parallel to the shore, and then swimming in.

Life is uncanny. Four months ago, I flew out to Arizona to be with Carse and spend a few days. We went out one night and lit it up. Pizza and beer led to playing pool and drinking beer, which led to karaoke and drinking more beer and smoking cigarettes, and before I knew it, we were walking home at 4 a.m., very drunk. At the karaoke bar, in the wee hours, we were sitting at a table with a group of pilots in training. This was a good group, and we were having fun. One of the pilots leaned over and confided in me that she had failed a particular flight maneuver that day, and she was being particularly hard on herself, abusing herself with alcohol, as was I. I listened patiently. Thinking of my son Cooper, also a pilot in training, I asked, “Are you a perfectionist?” She looked at me stunned, deer-in-the-headlights stunned, like I had just seen into her soul. Yes, she said slowly.

I gave the only advice I could give in the moment. I said, “Smile, don’t take yourself too seriously, and don’t swim against the rip.”

Where am I? I’m right here. What time is it? It’s right now.